“…after summer evermore succeeds
Barren winter, with his wrathful nipping cold…”
Shakespeare
It was definitely feeling very barren winter here in the valley in November. Like many people I was caught out by the early snow and cold. I managed to plant garlic and the last of the bulbs before the first snow. But some fall clean up jobs were left in mid-stream. It couldn’t be helped when January depths of snow covered the landscape.
I used to be annoyed by the seed catalogues arriving before Christmas. I’m happy to see them this year, though. The Vesey’s Spring 2020 Catalogue has a bright yellow crocosmia on the cover. It cheered me up when I looked out at all that snow in November and I’m sure it will do the same in January.
I did more baking in the couple of cold weeks in November than I did all last winter. It seemed like fitting revenge on the nasty weather. The old Findlay cookstove is the most comforting thing ever in the cold. And it’s really great for baking. Thanks for writing the baking book, Evelyn. It’s getting well used this year.
It usually takes me lots of candles to get through the short days of early winter. Better to light a candle or three than to curse the darkness.
By early December, I am resigned to the changed landscape with its bare and now austere looking trees. Walking in the bush I can more easily see the shape of the land again. Going south from the house towards the Ganaraska, it’s obvious from the steep ravines that we are on the edge of the moraine.
It’s easier to spot the orange berries of the bittersweet vine once the leaves are off the trees. I recently found some that was within reach on a small tree. Often it’s too high up in tall trees to get to easily.
I channelled my inner Martha and made a grape vine wreath for the door. Grape vine is everywhere and it holds together easily just wound around itself. I added some of that colourful bittersweet and called it lovely. Now wasn’t that the easiest decoration ever? I think it had to be. I can’t be bothered with the wreath forms and wire and glue so I was happy to be able to put something together with just two vines that grow right here.
The formerly busy beavers are quiet now and must have, unlike me, done all their winter preparations. They have stopped cutting trees and are safe in their lodge for the winter. The ducks who live on the beaver pond are still active and I can hear them squawking most days.
Maybe the weather gods will favour us with enough warmish days to finish up all those fall jobs we only started. Or maybe they won’t. Whatever we don’t get done now will still be there in the spring.
By Jill Williams
